Printer and type designer Frederic Goudy stated that "Men who would letterspace blackletter would shag sheep." Goudy's statement inspired the title of the book Stop Stealing Sheep, an introduction to typography. It was also used for very short phrases set in capital letters or small caps to prevent the phrases from appearing too black compared to the rest of the page. Despite the cost, letter spacing was used in print advertising and book publishing.
Letter spacing required hand insertion of copper (a half-point), brass (one point), and printer's "lead" (two points) spaces between individual pieces of type or between matrices. Some publishers and typesetters avoided letter spacing because it was costly in materials and labor. In the days of hot metal typesetting, letter spacing required adding horizontal space between letters of words set in metal type in increments of a minimum of a half-point. Tracking can similarly go in either direction, but with metal type, one could make groups of letters only farther apart (positive spacing). Digital kerning could go in either direction. A kern could therefore only bring letters closer together (negative spacing). Historically, with metal type, a kern meant having a letter stick out beyond the metal slug to which it was attached, or having part of the body of the slug cut off to allow letters to overlap.
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